There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized or even cured. The only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private and where food can be poked in to him with a stick. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Category: Completely random stuff that has nothing to do with anything

I’ve gotten involved with several friends across multiple Facebook pages in discussions over President Trump’s recent decision to exit the Paris Climate Change Agreement. One of my friends asked me point blank how I could support President Trump’s decision, given that the President likely made it to fulfill a campaign promise rather than out of any particularly strong feelings one way or the other about the environment or the agreement itself. I promised him a separate response on the matter. That comment got too long for a comment and turned into its own Facebook post . . . which eventually got too long for a Facebook post and turned into . . . well . . this.

In this series of letters I’ve tried to introduce to you a number of concepts that sound contradictory at first blush, but aren’t. This one will be no exception.

In my previous letter, I wrote about being content with imperfection. We are all of us imperfect beings, and it’s easy at time to “make the perfect the enemy of the good,” never doing what we want or need to do because we can’t do it perfectly.

But while I hope you don’t spend too much time and energy obsessing about being perfect, I also hope you learn the difference between being “perfect” and being “complete.”

There’s a line from the romantic movie Jerry MacGuire, when the female and male lead finally get together, and Renee Zellweger’s character says to Tom Cruise’s character: “You complete me.”

I hate that line. Nobody should have to look to their romantic partner to “complete” them. In fact, in my experience it makes the relationship weaker when one party feels incomplete without the other.

This gets back to what I wrote in a previous letter about Marc Chagall’s Three Candles painting: A relationship is its best self when it consists of two complete people, bringing their whole selves into the relationship and, through that relationship, forging something that is entirely new, yet does not detract from the two selves that went into the making of it.

Tragically, much of our culture is built on making people – especially girls – feel incomplete without another person to “fulfill” them.

This is most vividly apparent in romantic relationships: I grew up in a very conservative culture where men were deemed incomplete until they found a “help-meet” for themselves (if you’re not familiar with that word by the time you read this, that’s a wonderful thing. It’s an out-of-context reading of Proverbs 31 . . . an interpretation of that passage to which I hope I can avoid exposing you for as long as possible.)

But if Proverbs 31 is used to shame men into feeling incomplete without the perfect woman, then it’s used to absolutely bludgeon women into feeling inadequate and second-rate unless and until they’re capable of essentially performing the equivalent of running several small companies . . . all for the benefit of their husbands.

Because in the culture I grew up with, most women were taught from a very young age that they needed a man to complete them. First they were to live at the behest of their fathers, until such time as they caught the eye of a young man. Then, once the man (always the man) initiated a romantic relationship (designed, of course, to culminate in marriage) they were to live at the behest of their husbands.

That’s not what I want for you. As your father, it is not my job to complete you. As a grown, adult woman, it will not be your husband’s job to complete you.

You complete you.

That is, again, why I want to train you up to be a strong, independent, creative and fearless woman. And that’s why it’s important to me to give you more latitude, more freedom, than many other parents feel they can give their one-year-old children. I am not most parents, and I do not want you to be most daughters. Because even as our culture becomes more and more aware of the ways in which women have been subjugated, relegated to second-class status, and made to serve as supporting characters in their own stories, most simply assume that passive awareness of these things will “fix it.”

I don’t think that. I think the only way to fight back against the pressures and tensions and expectations and shame that the world will heap on you – in many cases solely because you’re a woman – is to actively counter it, starting even now, so that by the time you’re old enough to comprehend those forces . . . by the time you’re old enough to read this letter . . . the habit of being complete will already be second nature to you.

And when you’re a complete person, all of those pressures and expectations don’t matter, because you can simply do what you’re going to do anyway, without letting them weigh on you. And then, if you decide you want to be a “working woman,” that’s ok, and the expectations of those who think you’re selling your family short by choosing that path won’t matter. If you decide you want to be an entrepreneur and go out and create something totally new, that’s ok too, and the expectations of those who think women are ill-suited for such endeavors won’t matter. If you decide you want to stay at home and raise a family, that’s ok too, and the expectations of those who think feminism means rejecting home and family won’t matter.

In short, being complete . . . being independent of the expectations and burdens that come with letting another person complete you . . . leaves you free to do whatever your heart desires.

And whatever that is, I’ll be behind you without caveat or reservation, cheering you on.

I’ve talked at length in my last several letters about love, but I’ve only barely touched on one of the most important people in your life . . . someone I hope you will learn to love as completely, fully, and unconditionally as you do anyone.

. . . since I’ve posted anything here. That’s kind of weird. Writing is such a big part of who I am . . . but these days I do most of my writing at work or in various philosophical debates across Facebook. A friend recently told me that I need to post more . . . maybe I will . . .

So my wife and I finally made it out to see “Avatar” tonight, on the last weekend it’s in the theater here. That being the case, if you haven’t seen it, plan to see it, and don’t want to know anything that happens, consider this your *SPOILER ALERT*. I’ll try to refrain from giving away too many plot details, but there was something about it that struck me during a conversation with Heidi on the ride home.

We both agreed that it was better than expected – many of the reviews we’d read led us to believe that it was a shallow “Dances with Wolves” knock off built only to serve as a vehicle for a new graphic technology.

The graphics, of course, were amazing, but it was more than that. It definitely had its annoying parts – the naturist “theology” was downright preachy, and the message of “your culture is bad, and everybody else’s culture is good” really gets old (incidentally, why can’t anybody give Western Civilization an honest, objective look and say, “It has its good points and its bad points.” Why does there have to be a “better” and “worse” culture . . . isn’t the whole ideal of “diversity” simply to highlight and appreciate differences)

But I digress. The conversation I had with my wife on the way home was this: A number of the articles we’d both read talked of viewers who left the movie disappointed . . . disappointed that now they had to return to the “real world” . . . disappointed that they couldn’t stay on Pandora like the story’s hero. She said that didn’t make any sense to her – after all, the nature portrayed in Pandora was much like the nature here in the real world . . . harsh and unforgiving, and at the same time beautiful and rewarding.

I had to laugh, because in some subconscious part of my brain, it made perfect sense to me. I had to put some thought into it to piece it together, but finally I realized it . . . the appeal of Pandora is the appeal of an *unmanaged world.*

Very little about the actual plot of Avatar is especially original, but this particular piece seems to be an archtype of the epic drama genre into which this movie fits. Others in this vein include Braveheart, Gladiator, and yes, Dances with Wolves. It’s also found in classic literature like the Call of the Wild, the Leatherstocking Tales or any James Michener novel. It even made me think of the “Little House on the Prairie” series I read as a child.

The lure of Pandora is the lure of freedom – and of responsibility. From Avatar’s first scene, we are told that life on Pandora is utterly unforgiving. The humans who live there survive because they follow orders. Failure to stick to known areas, failure to follow accepted conventions and procedures, means death. It is a life that is utterly managed – literally down to when, where and how you breathe.

Contrast that with the life of Pandora’s native Na’vi. They too have conventions and rituals, but those conventions and rituals are theirs by choice . . . not by imposition. They too are subject to the harsh realities of nature, but to them those harsh realities are allies, not adversaries. This is true of the examples I mentioned as well – from William Wallace’s refusal to bow to a king, to Pa Ingalls’ need for “elbow room.”

Isn’t this reminiscent of the world we live in?Â We haveÂ laws now toÂ tell us what we can eat, what we can drink, where we can walk. Just the other day I read that they’re now trying to make it illegal for restaurants in New York to cook with salt! The President and his congressional allies seem determined to push through a health care bill chock full of additional managements – who we can see about our illnesses, where we can go for medicine, when we can die. We truly do live a thoroughly managed life. And I, for one, am sick of it. No wonder people wish they could escape this existence for the one portrayed in Avatar – harsh and dangerous as it is.Â But in this world where there are not empty places left to be discovered, and where “management” has permeated everyone, everything and every place, there are no frontiers left to escape to.

You know what’s especially interesting to me? I think that our need for this “wanderlust” is one of the ways we reflect the image of God. I have said repeatedly on this page that I believe God created us to be free, but I don’t just mean that in the sense of not being told what to do. I mean it in the sense of being free from the obligations, expectations and duties that come with a managed life.

I recently started reading the Bible from the beginning, trying to read it chronologically as best I can, to gain a picture of the evolving relationship between God and His creation. What I found kind of shocked me.

I have always felt closest to God . . . closest toÂ myself . . . in the solitude of nature – a mountain, a forest, a park – these are the places I hear God’s voice most clearly. But I don’t think I’m alone in that. In James Michener’s “The Source,” one of his characters has a conversation with God about moving into a big city, and God tells him that he won’t be able to hear His voice as clearly from inside the walls. While the conversation, of course, is fictional, I think it speaks to something true.

Consider the story of Cain and Abel . . . the Bible never tells us exactly what the problem was with Cain’s offering – just that God rejected it. But one of the things I find interesting is the difference between what the two men offered. Abel offered a lamb – the product of a solitary, nomadic life lived as a herder of sheep. Cain offered the produce of a garden – a stationary thing that tied him to a specific spot of land.

Then there was Babel – in his disapproval of such an audacious project, what did God do? He didn’t strike the tower with lightning and leave the project in ruins – he scattered the people who were all gathered in one place . . . and made certain they would never be able to do so again.

Then came Abraham, called from the most populous cities of his day to wander as a bedouin. There was also his nephew, Lot – the scripture speaks with foreboding of his decision to “settle down” in Sodom and Gomorrah, long before the cataclysm that destroys those cities and leaves him hiding in a cave.

And there is God Himself – who told the people of Israel, in exacting detail, to build Him a tent. The opulent temple that followed later was man’s idea, and as He seems to do with so many of our ideas, God’s approach to that one was something along the lines of, “ok, fine, whatever.”

In short, God seems toÂ like visiting us in unmanaged places – in places that are not utopian, but neither are they filled with all the concerns, stresses, obligations, expectations, duties – distractions – that seems so inescapable today.

While the anamistic view in Pandora fails to capture theÂ person that is God . . . a real person with whom we can have a real, fulfilling relationship . . . I think it does, inadvertently, say something about Him that speaks to that empty place in many hearts.

I don’t have the time or inclination to write one of my typical lengthy and involved posts, so I thought I’d share some of the more profound things that I’ve been reading and pondering of late . . .

I promise I hadn’t read this article by one of my favorite columnists, when I wrote my most recent post. But heck, if Peggy Noonan and I are thinking the same thoughts on the same day, I must be doing something right . . .

This captures perfectly the way I feel when I walk into a church service anymore . . .

This is a very interesting essay about MySpace, Facebook, and social strata. I’ve been on MySpace for a while now, but am not terribly impressed with it. I have been enjoying learning Facebook more over the last week or two, and I find it infinitely more useful – but that’s just me. I’ve even started a Facebook group called “So you don’t go to church anymore?” . . . come hang out with us if you happen to find yourself wandering around Facebook. All are welcome – even those who prefer to relate to God in the more traditional setting of a typical local church . . .

Dilbert for President? (Hat tip: Bob Hyatt) As someone who makes a living as a contractor supporting a government agency, I can identify very strongly with Scott Adams’ perspective . . .

As president, I would solve all the world’s problems by creating a reality TV show where think tanks compete for the best solutions to everything from health care to energy policy to immigration. The judges would be experts who help viewers sort the squirrel shit from the caviar, but the final decisions would be made by viewers, just like on American Idol.

I think you can see many problems with this plan. But you have to compare it to the current political process where idiots elect liars to transfer wealth to crooks. How’s that working out for you?

As usual, he has a point . . . but hey, who needs a political system where the people who genuinely make the decisions are the same ones affected by them . . .

For that matter, I could ask the same could be asked of religious system, or an educational system, or a medical system, or a financial system, or . . . need I continue??

. . . did I mention I’m not a huge fan of being controlled by other people? I’m sure this comes as a shock to any regular readers I have left . . .

I find myself once again apologizing for having gone so long without posting. It has been an eventful last few weeks. My sister-in-law spent a week in the hospital with a burst appendix (she’s recovering quite nicely now), My wife got raked over the coals by an idiot doctor who doesn’t seem to believe that she’s actually sick, our electricity went (mostly) out (it’s back now), our hot water seems to have died, and my spare time has lately been taken up with creating a new website to highlight my writing (the site will debut soon), and making a foray into the world of short story writing.

It is this last pursuit which, I think, readers of this blog will find most interesting. The story in question is still merely in its conceptualizing stage, but when complete, I will post it here. The main character of this (entirely fictional) short story is Abraham Lincoln . . . or rather, Abraham Lincoln’s portrait on a five dollar bill. It should be complete in the next couple of days.

In my last post, I responded to one meme with which my dear wife tagged me some time ago. The time has now come to respond to another with which she tagged me last week, “Five Things I Dig about Jesus.” Without much further ado, here they are:

2. He actually cared, truly cared, about people – in a way most folks only pretend to. And because he cared, he actually bothered to understand them, rather than merely passing judgment. He dealt with people individually, as people, rather than according to a strict set of rules. I dislike thinking in categories and boxes, and I especially dislike it when people put other people in categories and boxes and then think they know them. So I dig that.

3. He was radically unconventional. When none of the worldviews of the day captured the essence of what He knew to be true, He created a new one. Since it’s been a longstanding, deep-seated dream of mine to create a new and unique branch of philosophy (Christian Libertarianism? Optimistic Existentialism? Theistic Objectivism?* . . . something of that sort. . . . ) I dig that.

4. He put a lot more stock in intentions and motivations than He did in actual behaviors. Since I think what we do matters a heckuva lot less than why we do it, I dig that.

5. He wasn’t afraid to mix with “the wrong sort,” and he didn’t mind telling somebody to “go to hell” when the conversation called for it. Since I like a lot of people who are supposedly “the wrong sort,” and since I think a lot of “the right sort” need to be told to go to hell a lot more often, I dig that.

And now, once again, it is incumbent upon me to tag another five people with this meme. I hearby tag . . .

1.Leeann Walker – Because I wanted to tag her on the other meme, and couldn’t, because I was tardy in posting it and Kelly beat me to it.

I apologize for the dearth in posting of late. I have been working diligently on a number of projects, including a revamp of my wife’s website for her violin studio, and a new website of my own designed to test the waters in the world of freelance writing. Given that web development is a hobby for me, rather than a job, these projects have necessarily taken up a large amount of my free time in recent days.

All that to say, I haven’t had much time for writing – or for thinking about new things to write.

This being the case, I’m going to take a break from my normal, philosophical fare and deal with a couple things I’ve been delinquent on in recent days. My wife taggedme with a couple of “memes” that have been circulating the blogosphere of late, and it is well past time for me to respond.

Seven Odd Things

The first of these memes asks individuals to list seven random facts or habits about themselves. So, without further ado, here are seven odd things about me you probably never cared to know . . .

1. Vocational Awesomeness

I recently rode in a helicopter for the first time . . . it was an Indiana National Guard UH-60 Blackhawk very similar to this one. Heck, for all I know, it might have been this one.

Those of you who have read much of my writing know that I recently bid the local church farewell in favor of a more flexible, personal and intimate relationship with God than such a structured setting can provide. You may not, however, know that when I first did so, I resigned from the church I was attending at the time with a 24-page letter of resignation, complete with an executive summary and footnotes.

. . . hey . . . they said these factoids were supposed to be odd . . .

3. Origin of the Theses

I got my start blogging in the closed community of bloggers at BlogIt.com, which fit very well with my libertarian sensibilities. Each member pays a monthly fee (then $6, now $10) in order to post as many blogs as they wish on any number of topics. Writers are then paid a few pennies per click on their articles, and readers’ subscription fees are dispensed to those whose content they enjoy, according to how many times they read those writers’ stories. All very fair and equitable. I quit because I was managing a total of six blogs on different topics, posting on each of them multiple times per day, and I quite simply got burned out.

I earned a total of $60 in about 9 months of blogging.

4. A Few Notes

I don’t just write words, I write music as well – and have since I was a kid. I have not, however, tried my hand at actual composing for quite some time. Most of these days I just sit down at the piano or violin and play whatever I feel like, without writing any of it down. My most recent composition became the official hymn of my alma mater, Patrick Henry College nearly seven years ago. While deep and meaningful, it was slow and dragging, and as far as I know, has not been sung there for years. I doubt most of those currently attending even know Patrick Henry College has an “official hymn.”

My most recent arrangement, on the other hand, was much better received. I arranged “Gathering of the Clans” from the movie Braveheart for string quartet and uilleann pipes to be played during the groomsmen’s procession at our wedding. It was all very wonderful and I felt quite manly and warriorlike striding up the aisle to that particular piece.

5. Fun with the Fleet

I once got to tour an Ohio-class nuclear missile submarine, the Henry M. Jackson.

It was the second time such a sub had ever been opened to the public. They checked each of us for documentation verifying our U.S. citizenship (and accepted a driver’s license as proof – this was before September 11th). I was not allowed to take my camera on board. In the control room they had all the speed and depth gauges covered up so we could not even estimate how fast or deep she was capable of going.

As a side note, these modern day “boomers” have a lot more room than their slightly less modern cousins, like this one, which I’ve also had the pleasure of visiting a couple times.

6. Early Erstwhile Employment Efforts

My first job was a paper route. My sister and I delivered approximately 70 papers every morning for three years straight with only a couple family vacations off. That is not the odd part. This is. My second job was standing out in a parking lot directing traffic at an amusement park, rain or shine. I’m not entirely sure this was a step up from the paper route – although when they needed extra people inside the park they sometimes dragged me in to help police the water rides, assist backstage with the stunt show, or make sure little kids didn’t stick things (like fingers, for example) into the shark tank.

7. Gamboling, Gallivanting and Globetrotting Galore

I’ve never been outside the country for anything other than work – though I did thoroughly enjoy both my trips abroad. My first trip outside the U.S. was to Mexico in 1997, with a church group travelling to Calle Doce, Sonora to build a home for a pastor and his family whom we were supporting.

As a side note, it is very satisfying to construct a brick building entirely by hand. It is even more satisfying to stick one’s entire body into a barrel full of cold water intended for mixing cement, in the middle of a 120 degree afternoon.

My second trip was even more fun – I travelled to Bonn, Germany to heckle the United Nations . . . seriously.

It was 2001, and the Six Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was convening. If that’s too much of a mouthful, the words “Kyoto Protocol” might mean more to you. This bunch was the group that wrote said protocol, which purports to fix global warming by sending the economy of the U.S. and a couple other industrialized nations back into approximately the stone age.

Needless to say, there are those of us who don’t relish a return to the time when one’s primary mode of transportation ran on fodder. I and a bunch of my fellow Patrick Henry College Students joined a group going over to protest the treaty. We flew from Washington, D.C. to London, and from there to Brussels, Belgium – meeting with think tanks, scientists and others of like mind at each stop along the way. From Brussels we took a tour bus into Germany.

The highlight of this particular trip was when I talked the leaders of the group into letting me answer a challenge from Greenpeace! to hold a public, media-moderated debate over the Kyoto Protocol. The group leader didn’t want to participate, since he saw it as a stunt on the part of Greenpeace! designed to embarrass us – which it probably was.

I was probably the most prepared of the students on the trip, due to the fact that the professor who led the PHC delegation had asked me to complete an extra credit research assignment preparing all kinds of briefing materials for him in order to make sure he was as prepared as possible, several weeks before the trip. As he was getting his preparation, so was I, though I did not yet know it.

I led a team of three against three of the Greenpeace! students . . . and found out our team of two undergrad government majors and one business major was going up against their team of three graduate students in environmental sciences.

Surprisingly enough, they utterly failed to wipe the floor with us. This was either due to our l33t debating skillz, or due to the fact that the Protocol they were defending makes no sense.

Bonus points: We later found an online journal entry from one of the other Greenpeace! students who had observed the debate, which talked about how her side had “held their own against the conservatives.”

So there you have it . . . seven odd things which together paint a picture of Michael Daniels: World traveller, slayer of sacred cows, connoisseur of all things military, and writer of all things . . . well . . . written.

Now, I am supposed to tag fiveseven people to continue this meme. I hereby tag:

1.* Leeann Walker – because it’s been a long time, and I miss talking with her, and I hope she finds this and reads it.

2. Lynette Woods – because I’m sure this good friend has some interesting stories to tell.

3. David Hayward – because anybody with a blog called “The Naked Pastor” must have some odd things in his background.

4. Wayne Jacobsen – because I’d love to hear what someone so unconventional thinks is “odd.”

5. Chris Sligh – Yes, I watch American Idol, Yes, I do mean that Chris Sligh. Yes, he does have a blog, and yes, I do read it.

6. Glenn Reynolds – because I like his take on many things, and hey, if he should ever happen to see this, I could use the traffic . . .

* Upon further reflection, I recall that Leeann was already tagged on this particular meme by our friend Kelly, and so should not be expected to post on it again. In her place, I therefore tag Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Because he has a blog. And because he should therefore expect to fulfill the same obligations as the rest of us in the blogosphere, namely, taking a break from his nation’s nuclear program to tell us odd factoids about himself – like what exactly it feels like to be the Islamic version of John the Baptist.

Part two of this series – also known as “Five things I Dig about Jesus” – soon to come . . .